I envision the meeting at NBC News and MSNBC when they got the first debate of the campaign and met to decide what to do about it. Anything new since the last time? ‘Naw,’ they say. ‘When’s lunch?’

Not much is new. Besides YouTube. And MySpace. And the explosion of weblogs. And the spread of easy video editing tools. And podcasts. And iTunes. And the distributed media marketplace. And the incredible power of Google and its search and ads. And the implosion of old TV. And competition for cable from the internet. Naw, not much. You’d think they would have sat around that mahogany table and wondered what new they could do in this new media world. But, no, they decided to do things the way they always had done them.: They restricted use of the video from the people’s debate because they thought they could. Poor, sad, extinct, old sods.

So when Ad Age asked MSNBC for tomorrow’s edition about its antiquated media rules for the debate video, the network’s response:

In an e-mail, an MSNBC spokesman said, “The entire debate is available for all to view and link to on MSNBC.com.”

Where it’s hidden inside the bowels of an old network site. And, actually, it’s not even findable: I can’t see a reference to “debate” or “democratic” on the home page tonight. Neither is it truly linkable; each debate Q&A does not have but should have a permalink. And it’s certainly not embeddable so that bloggers could spread the video and the debate (and MSNBC’s brand). And, Lord knows, it’s not remixable! And so the people say, to hell with it, let’s just put it up on YouTube around those old farts. (Crossposted from PrezVid)

Not only was NBC’s distribution of the debate antiquated, but so was the style of the debate. Having Brian Williams go through a lightning round of questions that began with “some say this” or asking for 1-word answers or a show of hands wreaked of what they think the internet audience wants, when what they really want is substance.

Benjamin

Its up at You Tube and various outlets, not sure what all the fuss is about. The debate itself was pretty stilted, so I am not sure why folk would want to spend hours remixing it etc.

http://johnstodderinexile.wordpress.com John S.

It is astonishing, isn’t it, how lame the questions were? Brian Williams is supposed to be at the top of the journalism heap, but he had no game.

I think presidential debates should henceforth be anchored by two questioners, one from a pronounced left-wing bias and one from the right. The questions should have an edge. They should try to pin these candidates down. We need debates in which the only candidate prep that matters is that the candidate be knowledgable, informed and have developed basic strategic and philosophical positions. We need debates that cripple spin in the same way blogs reject PR as if it was a foreign tissue.

http://www.49abcnews.com kris

“Senator Barack Obama today sent a letter to Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean urging the DNC to make the video from any Democratic Presidential debate publicly available after the debate for free and without restriction.”